Port Adelaide president David Koch must build a smarter football club rather than a ruthless one

PORT Adelaide is still working through the “why” questions from another disappointing football season. The way forward is for the AFL club to be smarter — just as Richmond was when the Tigers brought an end to their mediocrity.

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PORT Adelaide will formally close its disappointing — even disastrous football season at both AFL and SANFL levels — on October 5 with its club champion count.

By then, there should be answers to the “why” questions that senior coach Ken Hinkley has left hanging while noting everyone can see “what” happened at Alberton this season.

All that is left is “how” Port Adelaide will react.

Port Adelaide midfielder-forward Chad Wingard, left, has declared his intent to stay at Alberton next season while the Power expects wingman Jared Polec to take up his “godfather” offer from North Melbourne. The refit of the Port Adelaide squad in the off-season will be telling of how much the Power has learned after failing to play AFL finals for the third time in four years. Picture: Sarah Reed.

Club president David Koch says the Power will be “ruthless”. When there is anger in a supporter base that has had its hopes built up but not fulfilled by making AFL finals just once (2017) in four seasons, throwing up tough themes plays to the fans’ emotional void.

But if Port Adelaide wants to get out of what Koch calls the “death zone” — that middle-ground wasteland with teams that rank from ninth to 12th — it needs to be smarter.

For all the angst that came from Port Adelaide defender Troy Chaplin’s cutting remarks on reaching Richmond that, as a free agent at the end of 2012, he had found an AFL club with a greater upside than the Power, his words have proved more than prophetic. They were accurate.

Port president David Koch. Picture: Hollie Adams/The Australian

How did Richmond rise from the team repeatedly mocked as the AFL’s greatest underperformer — “the club that finishes ninth” — to be powerful again on the field (with the premiership) and off (with the largest membership base)?

Not by being ruthless in a throwback to the Graeme Richmond days at Punt Road in the 1960s and 1970s when the Tigers won four premierships under coach Tom Hafey. But by being smarter, particularly in breaking down the many castles at Richmond to form a united, powerful club.

Here, Koch is right when he says: “There’s a great old saying in professional sports that good teams win games, great organisations win premierships. So we’ve got to have a look at our organisation from top to bottom.”

Ruthless can make a club reckless. Putting every player on the trade table, as Koch declared at the weekend, is a tough statement of notice to the Port Adelaide players. But it is neither real nor realistic.

Contracted midfielder-forward Chad Wingard last week reacted to the staggering report that an AFL club had asked for his medical records in preparation for a trade by posting on social media an image of a doll with two fictional compound fractures to his legs. As he gets the last say on any trade while on contract, Wingard put an end to that speculation.

At the same time, Wingard cannot be allowed to take his place at Alberton for granted so that he falls into a damaging comfort zone. This can only come from a smarter football program rather than a ruthless wrecking ball at Port Adelaide.

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